G-DATA, Avira, and Kaspersky Top Performers in New Antivirus Shootout

Respected antimalware product testing lab Av-Comparatives has just published the results of their latest file detection shootout. The on-demand file detection tests used as many as 291388 malware samples on twenty different antivirus applications. The only big name missing from the tests is Symantec who didn’t want to be included in the on-demand comparatives.

The top performers in the tests were G-Data and Avira. To anyone who follows antivirus shootouts from the likes of Av-Test or Av-Comparatives, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Both G-Data and Avira have been dominating the on-demand tests for the past several years. G-Data isn’t very popular in the US, but its dual engine antivirus product (BitDefender and Avast) has consistently been a top performer as far as detection is concerned. G-Data and Avira managed to identify 99.7% and 99.4% of the virus samples respectively.

Although G-Data and Avira have always been among the very best when it comes to detection rates, they are known to falter when it comes to removing malware. This makes them great choices for a brand new system, but not something you can rely on to heal infected systems. In such cases, you might want to look at the Kaspersky, which came in third with a 99.3% detection rate. It’s pleasing to see Kaspersky in the top 3, as the Russian firm had been slipping over the past few years.

The worst performer in the tests was Microsoft Security Essentials, which managed to detect only 93.1% of the threats. Sophos, F-Secure, Panda, BitDefender, BullGuard, McAfee, Fortinet, eScan, Webroot, and Avast managed to detect more than 98% of the threats. However, Webroot also had an astoundingly high number of false positives. Head over to av-comparatives.org for the full report.

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Pallab De

Pallab De is a blogger from India who has a soft spot for anything techie. He loves trying out new software and spends most of his day breaking and fixing his PC. Pallab loves participating in the social web; he has been active in technology forums since he was a teenager and is an active user of both twitter (@indyan) and facebook . View all posts by Pallab De